Life, in drawings

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It never ceases to surprise me how many firsts are still left in life – a new activity this year was a trip with friends who are artists in their own right. Believe me when I tell you it was most refreshing.

There is something special about a midweek holiday. Being the crazy workaholics that we are, we surprised ourselves with this rare treat last week, and drove up to Rishikesh in Uttarakhand. The last time we went on holiday, there weren’t any people to sketch, so this time we made sure that we’d get some suitable moments.

[At the ghats we look around for peace, shade and people to draw.]

[The photographer sits and talks about another two months…and then. I couldn’t keep up with his Hindi.]

This is not the brown boy, though it looks like him.

And here’s a restless little flower seller.

[Drawing from life is tough, but it must be done. It’s the only way to get away from the pre-conceived imagery in my head.]

[Here we are at Triveni Ghat waiting for the arati to start. It was very beautiful when it happened.

Prayer and worship always catch me unawares and I never know what to do.]

At one of the ghats we met Or, a graphic design student from Israel. He wanted to talk about moleskines and pens.

“Everyone is a hippie here, or a yoga nerd! I don’t want to talk about yoga or music.”

He was rather funny. “But India has karma, I love that concept.”

Our spiritual quest was punctuated by birthday calls from friends, all recommending their special things to do in Rishikesh, with love. And I kept thinking about all our beloved apps and digital services, which are just isolating us from each other more and more, and that just hearing the voice of a dear one on the phone is all it takes.

Calm in the air | Calm in the air, Kochi and Silent Valley | Calm in the air, Silent Valley and Alapuzzha | Calm in the air, Lake Vembanad
Bengalis, as everyone knows, are notoriously bad at other Indian languages, specially if they’ve grown up in Bengal, and my uncle is no different. And faced with Malayalam, he devised his own version:
Anyway, from Kottyam we went on to Periyar Forest Reserve. The road was beautiful – bordered with tea gardens and rubber plantations – and the aroma of spices greeted us the closer we got to the forest
I was drawing more nature on this trip than humans and the brown boy objected. “What’s the point of drawing nature? You can’t even do justice to it! I hereby direct you to draw only people.” So I tried, somewhat, on the last day.
And of course, the best part of every holiday is when you’re recounting the stories to your friends – just like I’m telling you now.

We took a local ferry from Aleppy to Kottayam, on Lake Vembanad. It was absolutely breathtaking.
The ferry would stop at these villages, every few minutes or so – just like bus stops – and people would get on and off. To tourists like me who’d never been to Kerala it was really new.
We passed hundreds of houseboats, and here is Anirudh telling us to read an article about Kerala later on –
And there were tons of birds – and I kept drawing and drawing trying to capture their motion
And amid all this beauty, someone was snoozing away

After a day or so in Kochi, gatecrashing funerals and school band practices, we went on to Silent Valley.Despite my grumbles, it was rather exciting. Here’s the stream at the foot of the forest inspection bungalow.

So you can see, we were surrounded by a lot of atmosphere.
Part 3 coming next.